Life of St Teresa of Jesus, Teresa of Avila [top ten books to read TXT] 📗

degree of glory to which our Lord

would raise the religious of this house.

25. When we had begun to sing the Office, the people began to

have a great devotion to the monastery; more nuns were received,

and our Lord began to stir up those who had been our greatest

persecutors to become great benefactors, and give alms to us.

In this way they came to approve of what they had condemned; and

so, by degrees, they withdrew from the lawsuit, and would say

that they now felt it to be a work of God, since His Majesty had

been pleased to carry it on in the face of so much opposition.

And now there is not one who thinks that it would have been right

not to have founded the monastery: so they make a point of

furnishing us with alms; for without any asking on our part,

without begging of any one, our Lord moves them to, succour us;

and so we always have what is necessary for us, and I trust in

our Lord it will always be so. [31] As the sisters are few in

number, if they do their duty as our Lord at present by His grace

enables them to do, I am confident that they will always have it,

and that they need not be a burden nor troublesome to anybody;

for our Lord will care for them, as He has hitherto done.

26. It is the greatest consolation to me to find myself among

those who are so detached. Their occupation is to learn how they

may advance in the service of God. Solitude is their delight;

and the thought of being visited by any one, even of their

nearest kindred, is a trial, unless it helps them to kindle more

and more their love of the Bridegroom. Accordingly, none come to

this house who do not aim at this; otherwise they neither give

nor receive any pleasure from their visits. Their conversation

is of God only; and so he whose conversation is different does

not understand them, and they do not understand him.

27. We keep the rule of our Lady of Carmel, not the rule of the

Mitigation, but as it was settled by Fr. Hugo, Cardinal of Santa

Sabina, and given in the year 1248, in the fifth year of the

pontificate of Innocent IV., Pope. All the trouble we had to go

through, as it seems to me, will have been endured to

good purpose.

28. And now, though the rule be somewhat severe,—for we never

eat flesh except in cases of necessity, fast eight months in the

year, and practise some other austerities besides, according to

the primitive rule, [32]—yet the sisters think it light on many

points, and so they have other observances, which we have thought

necessary for the more perfect keeping of it. And I trust in our

Lord that what we have begun will prosper more and more,

according to the promise of His Majesty.

29. The other house, which the holy woman of whom I spoke

before [33] laboured to establish, has been also blessed of our

Lord, and is founded in Alcala: it did not escape serious

opposition, nor fail to endure many trials. I know that all

duties of religion are observed in it, according to our primitive

rule. Our Lord grant that all may be to the praise and glory of

Himself and of the glorious Virgin Mary, whose habit we

wear. Amen.

30. I think you must be wearied, my father, by the tedious

history of this monastery; and yet it is most concise, if you

compare it with our labours, and the wonders which our Lord has

wrought here. There are many who can bear witness to this on

oath. I therefore beg of your reverence, for the love of God,

should you think fit to destroy the rest of this my writing, to

preserve that part of it which relates to this monastery, and

give it, when I am dead, to the sisters who may then be living in

it. It will encourage them greatly, who shall come here both to

serve God and to labour, that what has been thus begun may not

fall to decay, but ever grow and thrive, when they see how much

our Lord has done through one so mean and vile as I. As our Lord

has been so particularly gracious to us in the foundation of this

house it seems to me that she will do very wrong, and that she

will be heavily chastised of God, who shall be the first to relax

the perfect observance of the rule, which our Lord has here begun

and countenanced, so that it may be kept with so much sweetness:

it is most evident that the observance of it is easy, and that it

can be kept with ease, by the arrangement made for those who long

to be alone with their Bridegroom Christ, in order to live for

ever in Him.

31. This is to be the perpetual aim of those who are here, to be

alone with Him alone. They are not to be more in number than

thirteen: I know this number to be the best, for I have had many

opinions about it; and I have seen in my own experience, that to

preserve our spirit, living on alms, without asking of anyone, a

larger number would be inexpedient. May they always believe one

who with much labour, and by the prayers of many people,

accomplished that which must be for the best! That this is most

expedient for us will be seen from the joy and cheerfulness, and

the few troubles, we have all had in the years we have lived in

this house, as well as from the better health than usual of us

all. If any one thinks the rule hard, let her lay the fault on

her want of the true spirit, and not on the rule of the house,

seeing that delicate persons, and those not saints,—because they

have the true spirit,—can bear it all with so much sweetness.

Let others go to another monastery, where they may save their

souls in the way of their own spirit.

1. Toledo.

2. Avila. In the beginning of June, 1562.

3. See ch. xxxiv. § 2. The Brief was dated Feb. 7, 1562, the

third year of Pius IV. (De la Fuente).

4. The Brief was addressed to Doña Aldonza de Guzman, and to Doña

Guiomar de Ulloa, her daughter.

5. Don Alvaro de Mendoza (De la Fuente).

6. Don Francisco de Salcedo.

7. St. Peter of Alcantara. “Truly this is the house of

St. Joseph,” were the Saint’s words when he saw the rising

monastery; “for I see it is the little hospice of Bethlehem” (De

la Fuente).

8. In less than three months, perhaps; for St. Peter died in the

sixty-third year of his age, Oct. 18, 1562, and in less than

eight weeks after the foundation of the monastery of St. Joseph.

9. Don Juan de Ovalle.

10. When he saw that the Saint had made all her arrangements, he

knew the meaning of his illness, and said to her, “It is not

necessary I should be ill any longer” (Ribera, i. c. 8).

11. Doña Guiomar de Ulloa was now in her native place,

Ciudad Toro.

12. The Mass was said by Gaspar Daza. See infra, § 18; Reforma,

i. c. xlvi. § 3.

13. The bell which the Saint had provided for the convent weighed

less than three pounds, and remained in the monastery for a

hundred years, till it was sent, by order of the General, to the

monastery of Pastrana, where the general chapters were held.

There the friars assembled at the sound of the bell, which rang

for the first Mass of the Carmelite Reform (Reforma,

i. c. xlvi. § 1).

14. They were Doña Ines and Doña Ana de Tapia, cousins of the

Saint. There were present also Don Gonzalo de Aranda, Don

Francisco Salcedo, Julian of Avila, priest; Doña Juana de

Ahumada, the Saint’s sister; with her husband, Juan de Ovalle.

The Saint herself retained her own habit, making no change,

because she had not the permission of her superiors (Reforma,

i. c. xlvi. § 2).

15. Ch. xxxiii. § 13.

16. Ch. xxxiii. § 3.

17. The first of these was Antonia de Henao, a penitent of

St. Peter of Alcantara, and who wished to enter a religious house

far away from Avila, her home. St. Peter kept her for

St. Teresa. She was called from this day forth Antonia of the

Holy Ghost. The second was Maria de la Paz, brought up by Doña

Guiomar de Ulloa. Her name was Maria of the Cross. The third

was Ursola de los Santos. She retained her family name as Ursola

of the Saints. It was Gaspar Daza who brought her to the Saint.

The fourth was Maria de Avila, sister of Julian the priest, and

she was called Mary of St. Joseph. It was at this house, too,

that the Saint herself exchanged her ordinary designation of Doña

Teresa de Ahumada for Teresa of Jesus (Reforma, i. c. xlvi. § 2).

18. See Foundations, ch. ii. § 1, and ch. xxxi, § 1.

19. Ch. xxxiii. §§ 1, 2.

20. Of the Incarnation.

21. F. Domingo Bañes, the great commentator on St. Thomas.

On the margin of the MS., Bañes has with his own hand written:

“This was at the end of August, 1562. I was present, and gave

this opinion. I am writing this in May” (the day of the month is

not legible) “1575, and the mother has now founded nine

monasteries en gran religion” (De la Fuente). At this time Bañes

did not know, and had never seen, the Saint; he undertook her

defence simply because he saw that her intentions were good, and

the means she made use of for founding the monastery lawful,

seeing that she had received the commandment to do so from the

Pope. Bañes testifies thus in the depositions made in Salamanca

in 1591 in the Saint’s process. See vol. ii. p. 376 of Don

Vicente’s edition.

22. See Ch. xxxix. § 25.

23. Gonzalo de Aranda (De la Fuente).

24. Don Francisco de Salcedo (ibid.).

25. Ch. xxiii. § 6; Gaspar Daza (ibid.).

26. He died Oct. 18, 1562.

27. Ch. xxvii. § 21.

28. “El Padre Presentado, Dominico. Presentado en algunas

Religiones es cierto titulo de grado que es respeto del Maestro

como Licenciado” (Cobarruvias, in voce Presente). The father was

Fra Pedro Ibañez. See ch. xxxviii. § 15.

29. From the monastery of the Incarnation. These were Ana of

St. John, Ana of All the Angels, Maria Isabel, and Isabel of

St. Paul. St. Teresa was a simple nun, living under obedience to

the prioress of St. Joseph, Ana of St. John, and intended so to

remain. But the nuns applied to the Bishop of Avila and to the

Provincial of the Order, who, listening to the complaints of the

sisters, compelled the Saint to be their prioress. See Reforma,

i. c. xlix. § 4.

30. Mid-Lent of 1563.

31. See Way of Perfection, ch. ii.

32. “Jejunium singulis diebus, exceptis Dominicis, observetis a

Festo Exaltationis Sanctæ Crucis usque ad diem Dominicæ

Resurrectionis, nisi infirmitas vel debilitas corporis, aut alia

justa causa, jejunium solvi suadeat; quia necessitas non habet

legem. Ab esu carnium abstineatis, nisi pro infirmitatis aut

debilitatis remedio sint sumantur.” That is the tenth section of

the rule.

33. See ch. xxxv. § 1. Maria of Jesus had founded her house in

Alcala de Henares; but the austerities practised in it, and the

absence of the religious mitigations which